MASSACRE IN THE MIDEAST : Killings Harden Opponents of Peace : Reaction: Protests against talks with Israel erupt throughout Arab world. PLO demands a disarming of Israeli settlers.

The Arab world, already ambivalent about making peace with Israel, struggled Friday to absorb the consequences of the massacre of 48 Palestinian worshipers in a mosque in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Palestine Liberation Organization demanded an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and a move to disarm Israeli settlers, while thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan shouting, “No to peace and yes to the gun.”

A British tourist was stabbed in the Jordanian capital, Amman, by a Palestinian who apparently was enraged by news of the Hebron killings, an official said. The 77-year-old tourist was reported in stable condition.

In Egypt, riot police deployed unobtrusively during midday prayers as an apparent precautionary move.

In Libya, television and radio stations broke from normal programming and broadcast somber music and readings from the Koran. Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi called the massacre “a horrible, terroristic crime . . . officially planned by the Israeli government.”

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, already battling a widening tide of opposition to his peace agreement with Israel, found himself facing a new storm of demands for an end to the peace talks even as he agreed to send a delegation to Washington for stepped-up negotiations.

“What kind of peace are you talking about, if the crimes and killings against our people do not stop?” Arafat asked. “This will have a serious impact, not just on the negotiations, but on all aspects and at all levels.”

In addition to calling for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, PLO officials renewed their call for international troops to be deployed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to protect the 1.5 million Palestinians living there. They also called on Israel to disarm Jewish settlers in occupied Arab lands.

“During the past negotiations, the Israeli side was stressing the Israeli security requirements,” said Yasser Abed-Rabbo, head of the PLO’s information department. “This massacre has proved that security is a Palestinian need mainly, and for this reason, without having real guarantees for the security of the Palestinian people, I don’t think the resumption of the talks, even in Washington, will lead to a successful result.”

Abed-Rabbo, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said the attack “powerfully demonstrates the need to dismantle Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, to evict and disarm the settlers, remove the army from populated areas and provide international protection.”

The PLO in its talks with Israel has proposed the deployment of international troops, a suggestion the Israelis have rejected outright. It has also sought implementation of Security Council resolutions against Jewish settlements in occupied lands.

In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa backed the PLO’s demand for a Security Council session and added: “This horrendous incident confirms the need for confronting extremism, which has hit many societies.”

Moussa, who has acted as a mediator during the last several rounds of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, added that the incident demonstrated that security is a need for Palestinians “and not that of Israel alone.”

The Arab League, which has been asked by the PLO to convene an emergency session of its foreign ministers, also backed the PLO’s demand for international intervention.

Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid said the league “holds Israel totally responsible for the souls who were killed this morning.”

“This incident confirms once again the settlers’ indifference to the law and the Israeli authorities’ disregard of the settlers’ crimes, which leads to dangerous escalation and threatens the peace process,” Meguid said.

Arafat went into session with his top advisers Friday night and indicated that he would decide how quickly to send a peace delegation to Washington after gauging the response of the international community and of Israel.

Arafat responded positively to President Clinton’s invitation to resume peace talks in Washington even as many of his top advisers were expressing doubts about the wisdom of pushing forward with the peace process, which in recent months has drawn widening opposition in Palestinian circles as the gains at the negotiating table have dwindled.

The incident appears sure to deal a strong card to Arafat’s opponents, who have called for toppling the PLO chairman and violently undercutting the peace talks.

The Islamic fundamentalist movement Hamas called on Arafat to “annul the peace process with the Zionists and instead engage in holy war against the Jews.”

A coalition of Damascus-based radical groups that have opposed the Sept. 13 Declaration of Principles signed between Israel and the PLO issued a joint statement in Lebanon vowing revenge.

“We will retaliate with all our means and will redouble our struggle to undermine the accord of treason and topple Arafat, who has sold himself to the Zionists,” they said.

Iran also weighed in, declaring on Tehran Radio that “without doubt, this crime took place with the cooperation of the military forces of the Zionist regime.”